School of Fine Arts speaker preview

Spring semester will bring five new artists to speak at the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts, each representing a different artistic medium.

Every semester, each of the 10 areas of the School of Fine Arts uses their funding to pick an artist to speak in the Visiting Artist Lecture Series.

Each artist presents a lecture and works hands-on with student artists, including critiquing their work, meeting individually and leading workshops.

“It’s critical to get one-on-one interaction, to understand what this person’s like and what their feeling about making art is like,” Grunwald Gallery of Art Director Betsy Stirratt said. “Those things can only happen in a small group situation.”

She said choosing the artists is a collaborative effort.

“It’s usually students and faculty working together to decide who to bring in, whoever will help their program the best,” Stirratt said.

Erik Waterkotte is the first lecturer scheduled this spring.

Waterkotte, who will present on Jan. 24, is a printmaker and served on the School of Fine Arts faculty as a visiting assistant professor from 2010 to 2011.

“I am continually drawn to ideas and events that blur the line between fantasy and reality,” Waterkotte said on his website. “Utopias, dystopias, religious extremism, cults, alchemy and mysticism are all fodder for my work.”

After Waterkotte, a photographer named Alec Soth is scheduled to visit on Feb. 7.
Soth is from Minneapolis and has exhibited work all over the world including New York, Rome, Milan, Berlin, London and Seoul, South Korea.

Sculptor Robert Melee will visit the School of Fine Arts on Feb. 21.
Melee, who lives and works in New Jersey and New York City, has exhibited work around the country.

He has been featured in the New York Times, V Magazine and Art Monthly.
Sondra Sherman is scheduled for March 28. Sherman specializes in metal making and jewelry design.

Sherman has shown her pieces in solo exhibits in California, Massachusetts, Arizona and Washington D.C.

“Inspired by the private and public contexts of jewelry, I utilize its distinctive voice in the world of things we surround ourselves with and are surrounded by,” Sherman said on her website.

The final visiting lecturer of the semester is graphic designer Dawn Hancock, scheduled for April 11.

Hancock founded Firebelly, a graphic design company that focuses its design work on charitable organizations.

The School of Fine Arts encourages all art students to attend the lecture series even if the artist does not work in their particular medium, Stirratt said.

Non-art majors and people in the Bloomington community are encouraged to attend as well. All lectures begin at 5 p.m.

“I think it’s important to see how artists work outside of a classroom,” PR assistant Amanda Fong said. “You get so immersed in what it’s like to create art in a classroom when you have an assignment. Seeing artists come and do things for their own purposes is really eye-opening.”

Follow reporter Alison Graham on Twitter @AlisonGraham218.